Dr John Gallant: better terrain data for Australia

Dr John Gallant is developing high resolution digital elevation models of Australia for water accounting and soil prediction.

• 10 September 2009 | Updated 14 October 2011

• Current activities
• Background 
• Academic qualifications 
• Achievements  
• Professional activities
  

Current activities

Dr John Gallant leads the Terrain Analysis team developing new methods and data for high resolution terrain analysis.

The team is producing several 1 second (~30 m) resolution digital elevation models (DEM) for Australia based on Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) data, developing methods to use the DEMs for water accounting, and developing techniques for compositing disparate DEMs into coherent products.

The team is also developing methods to predict soil properties across large areas using DEMs and geophysical data.

Background

Dr Gallant started his career in electronic engineering before switching to geomorphometry (or terrain analysis) in the 1990s.

He has contributed to a wide range of projects applying terrain analysis in ecology, hydrology, geomorphology and soil science.

Dr Gallant brings together knowledge of mathematical methods and landscape processes to produce better representations of land surface elevation and soil properties.

Academic qualifications

Dr Gallant has been awarded a:

• Bachelor of Engineering from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Victoria, Australia in 1985
• Master of Resource and Environmental Studies from the Australian National University, Canberra in 1993
• Doctor of Philosophy from the Australian National University in 1998.

Achievements

Dr Gallant is the co-editor of Terrain Analysis: Principles and Applications (Wiley, 2000), a widely-used reference on terrain analysis methods.

He is the author of:

• 14 journal articles
• 12 reports
• 12 book chapters
• 22 conference papers.

Dr Gallant received the 2003 Early Career Research Excellence Award from the Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand.

He was invited to present a keynote paper at the first International Symposium on Terrain Analysis and Digital Terrain Modelling, Nanjing, 2006.

Dr Gallant led the development of the Multi-resolution Valley Bottom Flatness index (MrVBF) method for delineating depositional zones, now widely used in hydrologic and geomorphic applications.

He has co-supervised two doctoral students.

Professional activities

Dr Gallant is a member of the:

• Australian Soil Science Society Inc
• American Geophysical Union
• Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
• Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand.

Find out more about CSIRO Land and Water.